An “issue” is the point about which a spouse has strong feelings. An “episode” is the illustration of an issue. Commonly, there is more than one issue contained within a single episode.

When a husband or wife tries to cover all the issues illustrated by a given episode, the patience of the most tolerant listener will be strained beyond the limit. Therefore, the speaker should try to focus on the issue as exemplified by the inci­dent rather than cover all the issues contained within a single episode.

“Mimi” had felt that she and “Dov” needed marital counsel­ing for quite some time. Whenever she raised the subject at home, Dov asserted his strong opposition to the idea. The strains in their marriage were worsening and Mimi was not willing to give up on the idea of outside help.

One evening while the couple were out for a walk, Mimi gingerly broached the subject of their going to see a marriage counselor.

Dov stopped in his tracks. He gritted his teeth and glared at Mimi. In a voice low enough for the neighbors not to hear, he seethed, “We are not going to any mar­riage counselor. Do you hear me? That’s it!”

Dov turned around and briskly walked back home, leaving Mimi to continue her walk alone.

Mimi was so hurt and angry about the sidewalk episode that she could not let it pass. A few weeks later, she brought it up to Dov. By this time, she had identi­fied a number of salient issues which this incident illus­trated. The list included: Dov’s unwillingness to negoti­ate the couple’s differences, Dov’s autocratic style of cutting off discussion of topics which made him uncom­fortable, Dov’s denial of the couple’s glaring need for professional help, Mimi’s feeling that her needs were assigned second-class status by Dov and the double stan­dard Mimi perceived in the way Dov insisted on lengthy discussions of topics which were important to him.

Mimi tried to illustrate each of these issues with other examples culled from her mental files of prior griev­ances. Before Mimi got even a quarter of the way through her list of complaints, Dov erupted again and stormed out of the room.

Mimi took Dov’s behavior as a confirmation of his intractable nature. It fueled her hopelessness and made her contemplate divorce. To Dov’s credit, he tried to lis­ten to Mimi. But when Mimi started heaping the plate so high, Dov’s patience gave way and he could not bear to listen any longer.

What went wrong? Surely, Dov should not have stormed out the way he did. It would have been much more productive if Dov had simply told Mimi, “It is difficult for me to listen to you any longer. I think we had better stop now. Let’s continue at another time.” In fact, Dov eventually learned to do just that, but only after the couple did come for marriage counseling.

Mimi, too, had a lot to learn. She needed to learn that it is unrealistic to talk out all of the issues contained in a single episode during one communication session. She learned that it is much more productive to select one priority issue to focus on and use the incident to illustrate that issue only.

As a result of the counseling, Mimi learned how to say, “You know, Dov, I was very disturbed about the way you spoke to me the other day when we were out for a walk. There were a number of things that bothered me about it but for now I would like you to understand just one aspect of that event.”

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Dr. Meir Wikler is a psychotherapist and family counselor in full-time private practice with offices in Brooklyn, N.Y. and Lakewood, N.J. This article has been adapted with permission of the author and publisher from Ten Minutes a Day to a Better Marriage: Getting Your Spouse to Understand You by Dr. Meir Wikler (Artscroll, 2003).